Are Star Wars Theories To Blame For ‘The Last Jedi’s Divisiveness?

The latest Star Wars movie is divisive. Like, really divisive. Seriously, just check out the comments section.

To say that fans have had a mixed reaction to Star Wars: The Last Jedi would be an early contender for “understatement of the year,” but there might be a reason behind it. One prominent YouTuber attempted to get to the bottom of it in his latest video essay.

Matpat, who posts videos under the channel Film Theories, released a new video called “How Star Wars Theories KILLED Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” taking a look at all the clips that he and others made before the film’s release.

In his essay, he takes a look at the many, many YouTube theories that were released about the film, guessing that Rey was the child of Obi-Wan Kenobi or that Snoke was actually a resurrected Mace Windu. Those are only a few of the many possibilities presented from Internet sleuths, which run the gamut from “believable” to “holy sh*t that person needs medication.”

Film Theories tended to present some of the wackier ideas, which he admitted in this latest video, but now he’s breaking down the correlation between all of the new ideas presented in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the theories like his own that were posted before release, and the disappointment of fans after seeing the film.

He uses principles to help illustrate his point, including ideas such as the Mere Exposure Effect and the Illusory Truth Effect, but also does a good job not to lay blame solely at the feet of scorned fans.

It’s worth watching if only to gain some insight into the thought process of theorists who pore over every detail, fans who like the movie, and fans who hate the movie. He also, perhaps ironically, uses Breaking Bad as an example, a series in which The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson helmed multiple fan-favorite and award-winning episodes.

All in all, it’s unfair to blame fan theories for the negative backlash against the film. Some people just didn’t like the movie while others loved it, and both are ok. Just imagine how The Empire Strikes Back would be received had it come out in the Internet age…

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now in theaters.